The three widely agreed upon elements that go into committing a crime are means, motive, and opportunity. Skipping “means” for now, motive is present, but lightly so. The individuals arrested were, according to Brazilian Federal Police, all born in Brazil, had never traveled to the Middle East, and hadn’t even met each other (see also this criticism about the media and politicians, who ascribe attacks to Daesh — often without specific evidence for its actual involvement).

Brazil’s Justice Minister Alexandre de Moraes attends a press conference on arrests made in at least two states before the start of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, in Brasilia July 21, 2016 (Photo: Adriano Machado / Reuters).

Brazil’s Muslim population is incredibly small, not large enough to mention in the CIA World Factbook. According to the US Governmental International Religious Freedom Report, the assessments of the number of Muslims vary enormously: “According to the 2010 census, there are approximately 35,200 Muslims, while the Federation of Muslim Associations of Brazil states the number at approximately 1.5 million. Other observers estimate the number of Muslims to be between 400,000 and 500,000.” The population is considered to be reasonably well-integrated, and there has been a recent influx of converts from the Brazilian populace. In all, hardly a situation where one would expect Daesh sympathizers to be found. According to police, the 10 met, communicated, and learned via websites associated with Radical Islam, so there is a very strong possibility that these individuals felt otherwise disgruntled and saw in Radical Islam an outlet for their feelings.

The question of “means” is where things get weird. The group had no bomb-making materials, had inquired online about buying a single AK-47 rifle from a seller in Paraguay, and had only recently talked about maybe getting some martial arts training. According to Brazilian Police, it was this additional step to “action” and “planning” from what was previously only communication online — for which they were already being monitored — that led to the arrests. That being said, this group was clearly nowhere close to reaching the ability to launch what the world would consider a terror attack, and were arguably a good distance from basic competency in the field. If, as Donn Piatt once suggested, greatness can be measured by one’s enemies, this ring of would-be terrorists was hardly a trophy for Brazil’s security apparatus. So why was this broadcast so widely? The principle security fear surrounding the Rio 2016 Olympic Games had been street crime, or crimes of opportunity. It is precisely these crimes of opportunity that this group of 10 were capable of carrying out.

We expect that if there is a major drop in inequality, homicide rates go down. In 2000, Brazil’s homicide rate was 32.2 per 100,000 residents, and in 2012 it was just over 32.4. — Christopher Mikton, technical officer on the WHO Prevention of Violence Team cited in Vincent Bevins, “In Brazil, homicide rate still high despite increased prosperity“, Los Angeles Times, 22.05.2015.

Despite an improvement in all other economic and social indicators prosperity for the region, Brazil’s crime rates remain exceptionally high. From 2000 until 2012 the homicide rate remained essentially the same while globally the homicide rate dropped 16%. An important detail to this statistic, however, is the fact that homicide rates in wealthier areas of the country have actually dropped significantly due to aggressive, some would say heavy-handed, security policies. One can assume, given the lack of change in the national rate, that the homicide rate in the more impoverished areas has increased. If true, the cause is likely demographic: The primary perpetrators of crime, young adult males, have increased in share of the population.

Brazil’s security forces have been trying to address these fears through “pacification” of the Favelas which began before the 2014 FIFA World Cup and a wide-spread and publicized redeployment of troops and security personnel to the city. The operations in the Favelas have been met with marginal success at best and dubious reactions internationally. Couple these question marks with the Zika Virus, which so far nobody has any answers for, and it can be seen that Brazilian officials may have been looking for a “win”. Ironically, while this case did demonstrate Brazil’s ability to monitor, track, and arrest a group of suspects simultaneously, it also demonstrated the class of criminal that Brazil’s security community considers dangerous enough to warrant an operation of this magnitude. Brazil does not fear Daesh; Brazil fears the street criminal.

Shortly after the opening ceremonies, which featured an ironic tribute to “favela culture”, a Federal Police squad car took a wrong turn and wound up in a favela near the airport. It is unknown whose “territory” this was but Brazil’s most powerful gang, Red Command, is reported to hold ground near the same airport. The car was targeted by machine gun fire and one officer was killed. Brazilian officials later claimed the identity of the killer was known, though he had not been brought into custody (“Olympic officer who was shot in head after wrong turn into slum dies“, Chicago Tribune, 11.08.2016).

At around the same time a prison and the town around it erupted into violence in response to a crackdown on cell reception within the prison and subsequent measures by authorities to disrupt communications to, from, and between gang members in prison. The government was forced to send a sizable force, 1,000 army soldiers and 200 marines, to quell the unrest (Jonathan Watts, “Brazil deploys over 1,000 troops in response to spate of gang-related attacks“, The Guardian, 03.08.3016).

If the reaction to Ryan Lochte showed what stereotypes Brazilians are embarrassed by, the arrest of 10 terrorists, albeit amateur, may have been an attempt to display strength and security while in the public spotlight. The situation in the favelas and the prison riot turned insurrection suggest Brazil’s security apparatus still has a ways to go in facing crime-based security challenges before it can credibly stand shoulder to shoulder with counterparts in other regional powers.

Militias of the Popular Mobilization Units south-west of Mosul at the beginning of November 2016.

Since its official inception shortly after the beginning of the war against the terror organisation “Islamic State” (ISIS) in Iraq in the summer of 2014 the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU; aka Hashd) has garnered its fair share of controversy. Human rights reports have documented their use of child soldiers and their abuse and torture of Sunni civilians in areas recaptured from ISIS.

Given the Iranian support to these militias, the US has refused to work with them or act as their supporting air force, in the same way they have been for the Iraqi Army and the Kurdish Peshmerga. They also fear that PMU participation in operations in Sunni-majority parts of Iraq would turn local Sunnis against the Iraqi military and the coalition, which would seriously complicate efforts to uproot and defeat ISIS.

In March 2015 the PMU single-handedly launched an offensive against then ISIS-occupied Tikrit. They told the Iraqi Army they were welcome to participate provided they forbid the US from joining up. This was an attempt to demonstrate that they could fight ISIS without Washington’s support. The stunt ended in abject failure for them. They withdrew under ISIS fire and the Iraqi Army moved in with US air support and recaptured the town in one of their first major victories against the militants since the war began (Kenneth M. Pollack, “Iraq’s Mr. Abadi Comes to Washington“, Brookings Institution, 13 April 2015).

In the operation to recapture Fallujah (in May and June of this year) Baghdad allotted the PMU a supporting role in the operation, in hopes of keeping them out of the actual city. But in that role they still abused and brutalized some of the approximate 50,000 civilians who fled that bombed and ruined city throughout the course of that assault.

Since the end of October 2016, the PMU had launched an offensive towards the west of Mosul. Their goal is to cut off any option of retreat by ISIL insurgents into neighboring Syria or any reinforcement for their defense of Mosul.

The PMU have been given again a supporting role. In the two-week old operation, Iraqi and Kurdish forces have been taking towns and villages from ISIS to the north, east and south, moving in closer to the city limits. Nobody has covered the west, leading to some speculation that the coalition secretly wants ISIS to evacuate Mosul to Syria to avoid a long drawn out and destructive battle in that metropolis.

Now, however, the PMU are moving in to Mosul’s west, fighting to capture Tal Afar (which has a large Turkmen population) and close off ISIS’s only escape route. This in turn means that two possible scenarios could come to be: ISIS doubles down and decides to fight to the death in Mosul knowing it has no exit route back to Syria, increasing the chance that more of Mosul will be destroyed and more civilians will be killed or ISIS tries to escape to Syria by trying to break through PMU lines.

The second scenario would be a particularly interesting one. While ISIS did fight sustained battles in Fallujah and the Syrian city of Manbij. In both cases they began withdrawing when it was clear they stood no chance. When leaving Fallujah their withdrawing convoys were bombed by both Iraqi and US coalition aircraft. From Manbij they managed to escape since the US suspected they had civilians with them as human shields.

Militia fighters entered the village of Abu Shuwayhah, south of Mosul, on Tuesday, during the operation to retake Mosul, the last major ISIS stronghold in Iraq (Photo: Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP).

If ISIS were to make a similar move in Mosul while the PMU remain the only force standing to their west that raises the question how the US and the coalition would respond. For one the coalition does not want to work with the PMU and the PMU do not in any way want to be seen working with the Americans – since they oppose their presence in Iraq to begin. Simply bombing ISIS as they try to break through PMU lines to get back to Syria increases the chance that the US kills PMU through lack of coordination, like it did to at least 62 Syrian soldiers in the city of Deir Ezzor when they mistook them for ISIS militants in the same vicinity in September. This would likely inflame the PMU and could lead them to target American forces and interests in Iraq in retaliation, as they have already threatened to do.

As the battle for Mosul progresses and looks set to last at least another few weeks, if not months, the role of the PMU should be carefully observed given the important positions they are now beginning to occupy.

Since June 2015 the Kurds have controlled the entirety of that northeastern border when they connected their two main cantons of Jazira and Kobani – territory which stretches from the Syrian border with Iraq all the way to the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. Turkey intervened in the remaining 100-kilometer-wide swath of territory stretching from the west bank of that river to the sole remaining isolated western Kurdish canton of Afrin – which was controlled by Islamic State (ISIS) militants and other armed groups.

Al-Bab is 50km west of Manbij. Turkey does not want the YPG to take al-Bab (and has began threatening to remove it from Manbij also), fearing that it will enable them to use it as a launchpad to reach Afrin and finally create a corridor which will make all of their territories in Syria contiguous.

Washington warned both sides several times to avoid clashing and focus their attention and efforts on fighting ISIS. But Ankara is absolutely adamant that the YPG be stopped and is clearly prepared to continue bombing the group if it tries to advance against ISIS-occupied al-Bab.

However, here’s the thing: Damascus and its Kremlin backer do not want the Turkish-backed FSA militiamen, doing the bulk of the ground fighting for Ankara in Syria, to advance on al-Bab. This is simply because they know those rebels earnestly want to take up arms against the Syrian regime and see combating ISIS and containing the YPG in that corner of Syria as a mere sideshow to the most important battle in that country, the battle for Aleppo.

Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters in Syria.

Reuters recently interviewed several of these rebels who said as much. If given the choice they’d readily spill their blood to fight the regime. And the last thing Damascus and Moscow want is more opposition forces pouring into Aleppo. This could explain why Damascus reacted with such hostility to Turkey’s October 19 bombing of the YPG. Also, on October 25 a Syrian regime helicopter attacked Turkey’s FSA proxy southeast of the town of Dabiq killing two of the militiamen. None of this has reportedly deterred Turkey from pushing ahead.

Ankara is not willing to acquiesce to an SDF/YPG capture of al-Bab from ISIS, and Damascus doesn’t want a bunch of FSA fighters itching to fight in Aleppo takeover a city about 45km to its northeast.

On the other hand Damascus would certainly view Turkey’s greatest nightmare in that region, an SDF/YPG takeover of al-Bab, as a far lesser evil to a Turkish-FSA victory there. Damascus and the YPG haven’t gone to war against each other – for their own immediate tactical priorities and prudence more so than anything else. Also, while they have violently clashed against each other in the recent past none of those clashes escalated into a full-fledged war. Consequently YPG forces in the Kurdish district of Aleppo are viewed by a lot of Syrian opposition groups as little more than proxies of the regime since they have never joined their armed insurgency against it.

What will happen in the long-term is far from clear. What is clear at present is that ISIS militants entrenched in al-Bab will benefit the most from this impasse until some compromise, or a third plan to rout those militants out which is acceptable to all sides, is put forward.

Imagery from June 2016 shows two Su-24M Fencer and one Mi-8-17 Hip fuselage on a parking hardstand associated with Belarus’ 558th Aircraft Repair Plant in Baranovichi. (DigitalGlobe)

A review of satellite imagery shows some new developments at the 558th Aircraft Repair Plant in Baranovichi. Co-located at the 61st Fighter Airbase, the Belarusian-based Plant overhauled two Su-24M Fencer attack aircraft and a Mi-8-17 Hip transport helicopter, imagery from late June suggests.

Previously decommissioned from the Air and Air Defense Force, the aircraft were repainted in a desert camo scheme and parked near the facility’s engine test stand with wings and rotor blades removed. Initially, it was thought the Su-24M were a part of an order to supply Sudan with 12 of the platform, but a review of satellite imagery of the country’s airfields has thus far not indicated the presence of additional aircraft. Sudan has already received at least four of the twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, two of which were confirmed operating in Saudi Arabia for the Yemen conflict. Public records from the UN and SIPRI’s arms transfer database showed no new export filings by the Eastern European country. We’ll continue to watch future imagery for more insight.

In the meantime, further space snapshots acquired in August of the airfield showed the arrival of two IL-76 Candid transport aircraft. They may have arrived to transfer additional equipment to the 558 or pick-up equipment for export. Another desert camo Mi-8-17 Hip was also parked on a helicopter hardstand associated with the 558th; rotor blades were attached at the time of capture. Imagery from late in the month also showed the re-location of a former Belarusian Su-24M to the airfield’s operations apron. The Fencer may be undergoing flight tests prior to receiving a new camo pattern and being sent for export. The aircraft was joined by 3 x Mi-8-17 Hip and 3 x Mi-24 Hind, still thought to be in service with the country’s air defense arm. Several of the former Belarusian Su-24, previously in open storage, have been cannibalized and possibly put into longer term storage over the past year. Previous imagery shows their fuselage were wrapped and relocated near the 558th’s drive-through maintenance facility. Belarus retired its ageing fleet of Fencer in 2011.

According to the report, during the first half of 2016 police confiscated three “weapons of war” a day, using the government’s term for assault weapons, mostly variants of the AK-47s and M-16s. Between 2011 and 2014, the average number of such weapons captured was about one a day.

While the scope of American military aid to the government has been well documented, the amount of weaponry that the guerrillas were able to amass is much harder to quantify. But in the book “Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas“, authors David Spencer and Jose Angel Moroni Bracamonte note that one captured FMLN document from 1989 states that the guerrillas had 400 tons of weapons ready to be shipped from Cuba, with another 150 tons waiting in Nicaragua. According to the authors, this translates to approximately 27,000 weapons – not including those already in the hands of guerrillas in-country at the time.

This figure, it should be noted, assumes that half of the total tonnage was comprised of ammunition. This, however, seems unlikely, as the guerrillas were in chronically short supply for much of the war.

The problem in El Salvador, many have noted, is that the weapons used by the military and the guerrillas were never properly accounted for when the war ended in the early 1990s.

In his book on weapons in El Salvador, Jose Miguel Cruz, the Director El Salvador’s Institute of Public Opinion, asserts that “nobody knows how many weapons were left in the hands of civilians after the war, and institutional efforts to recover them were fractured, and totally failed.”

According to El Faro, there are several ways in which these weapons reached the hands of criminals or other groups when the conflict ended. Many weapons were kept by individual combatants, who then passed them on to gang members. Still others were sold by fighters who were left guarding significant caches after the war, or by commanders who had held onto weapons in case the peace process went sour. Many ended up on the black market which flourished after more than a decade of war.

Members of the 18th Street gang attend a mass at the prison of Izalco in El Salvador. (Photo: Ulises Rodriguez / Reuters).

To make matters worse, El Salvador’s gangs are looking to former military personnel or guerrillas for training. Earlier in September, another Salvadorean newspaper, El Mundo, reported that members of the 18th Street Gang had hired former combatants to train gang members at six camps in the departments of San Salvador, La Paz, La Libertad, and Sonsonate. These areas were theatres of intense combat of the 1980s.

The training of Salvadoran gang members by combatants is not a new phenomenon in Latin America. In Colombia, for example, paramilitary groups – many of them actively involved in the cocaine trade – took training from Yair Klein, a former lieutenant colonel in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in the 1980s.

More recently, drug trafficking organizations have turned to military veterans for training and as hitmen. The original members of the Zetas, for example, were almost entirely drawn from the Mexican Army, and it is believed that the group also hired members of Guatemala’s elite Kaibiles special forces.

The increase of military-grade weapons and training among El Salvador’s gangs bodes ill for the near-term future of the country’s security landscape. The government’s military approach to the problem of gangs will increasingly be countered by a military response. The civil war of the 1970s and 80s pitted ideological foes against each other. Today, the country is the scene of different conflicts: the government against criminals and rival criminals against each other.

The result is a climate of violence in which common crime is rampant and the civilian population suffers: El Salvador has one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Although the immediate threat to South Africa’s security has dissipated with the end of the Border War, it is apparent that South African leaders remain willing to use the SAAF to full effect. On 20 March 2013, Séléka rebels attempted to seize the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), Bangui, and besieged a garrison of around 250 South African paratroopers and special forces soldiers. In response, SAAF deployed four Saab JAS 39 Gripen C/D fighters – South Africa’s workhorse fighter jet since 2008 – and a Lockheed C-130BZ Hercules transport aircraft reportedly laden with bombs. Ultimately, a ceasefire agreement was reached with the rebels and so the close air support went undelivered, but this demonstrated the political will among South African leaders to continue to use airpower in defence of the country’s interests. Nonetheless, the South African military involvement in CAR can be assessed as an disaster (see “Factbox: SANDF’s disaster in CAR” below).

In the same time, flight hours have declined considerably, limiting opportunities for pilots to hone their skills. In the 2015-2016 fiscal year, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) aimed for 6,500 flight hours, but only 4,785 hours were actually flown, down from 5,026 flight hours in 2014-2015. It also seems that the Gripen fleet is not fully manned, with some pilots re-designated as reserve pilots and others assigned to instructor roles at Air Force Base Makhado. In short, the SAAF is not making full use of its Gripen fleet or use its fighter pilots, which could substantially diminish the air branch’s combat effectiveness.

Factbox: SANDF’s disaster in CAR
[…] current funding levels mean that Pretoria’s commitment to African security and stability missions presents the SANDF with critical challenges. Despite ambitions to deploy, the SANDF faces significant difficulty in generating the troops and key capabilities, such as airlift, required to play an effective role. The 2013 intervention in the CAR underlined this situation. Once the deployment was decided, it became clear that the army lacked sufficient troops to deploy more than a single combat team supported by a special-forces group. This provision proved inadequate when Séléka rebels attacked the capital city of Bangui, the CAR army disintegrated and the multinational force from Central African states proved ineffectual during the major combat phase. With a dearth of long-range airlift, South Africa was unable to quickly reinforce or extract its personnel. Thirteen troops were killed in close and hard fighting around Bangui, and the incident subsequently provoked debate within South Africa about the state of the armed forces. — “Chapter Nine: Sub-Saharan Africa“, The Military Balance 116, January 2016, p. 425.

A lack of adequate maintenance is also a persistent problem. According to South Africa’s 2014 Defence Review, the SANDF is in a critical state of decline – Ammunition stocks are depleted, infrastructure is falling apart, skilled staff is leaving and the arms of the various services operate in silos and are unable to manage basic procurement. More specific to the SAAF, South Africa previously relied upon short-term interim support contracts for its Gripen fleet, allowed these to lapse, and then established a longer term arrangement with Armscor for 2013-2016. With that agreement set to expire at the end of 2016, it remains to be seen whether South Africa will be able to secure a renewal of support from Armscor and Saab in time, or if the Gripen fleet’s maintenance is set for another period of neglect and uncertainty.

Finally, South Africa’s power projection is inhibited to some degree by its relative lack of strategic airlift. In September 2014, when a church hostel collapsed within the compound of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria, 85 South Africans died and several others were injured. As such, the SAAF was tasked with the repatriation of the survivors and victims of the disaster, but was only able to transport the 25 survivors. For the repatriation of the remaining bodies, the South African government had to charter an Airbus A320 and an Antonov An-124 transport plane. The Antonov was coming from the private firm Maximus Air Cargo. This casts some doubt on South Africa’s capacity to assist in disaster relief elsewhere on the African continent or to contribute toward peace support missions outside South Africa’s traditional sphere of influence in southern Africa. Although the SAAF boasts a total of nine C-130BZ Hercules transports, the majority of these were purchased in 1963, prior to the introduction of a United States arms embargo in response to South Africa’s then apartheid system. As such, these aircraft are aging, have a limited range, and can only carry up to 90 troops under ideal conditions. Unless the SAAF invests in new strategic airlift, South Africa will have to rely increasingly on chartered aircraft or assistance from external partners – such as NATO member states or the Russian Federation – in order to participate in any future humanitarian interventions.

Angola no longer presents a credible threat to South Africa’s security, but the considerable resources this country is investing in airpower should give South Africa pause. In 2013, Angola acquired 18 Sukhoi Su-30K fighters from the Russian Federation, which enjoy some performance advantages against the Gripen (according to the SIPRI Arms Transfers Database, all fighters should be delivered until end of this year). The narrowing capability gap does not necessarily imply that Angola is preparing for renewed confrontation with South Africa; rather, it suggests that South Africa’s pretences to continental leadership require greater fiduciary commitment, particularly with regard to South African airpower.

“Due to stiff resistance of the Daesh (ISIS) terror group, progress could not be achieved in an attack launched to take four settlements,” the Turkish military said in an October 12 statement quoted by Reuters. None of these four settlements were situated far south of the Turkish border, a clear indication that future successes will be more hard won than the initial success of the seizure of the border-town of Jarablus from ISIS militants on August 24 – which occurred after ISIS made what was clearly a tactical retreat to more easily fortifiable positions.

While the quality of the forces Turkey are backing are far from stellar they do nevertheless have the overwhelming fire support previously alluded to, as well as support from US coalition air power, and some US special forces soldiers also. Nevertheless, ISIS are having some success in following a policy which is enabling them to bleed out these militiamen (estimated to consist of at least 1,500 fighters) as they advance further south of the border.

ISIS even managed to bomb a border checkpoint, on October 13, in Azaz, which is controlled by the FSA, killing at least 14 of their soldiers. Earlier this month ISIS successfully managed to kill at least 25 more in a bomb attack (October 6) and another 21 fighters (October 2) when they rigged a town with explosives before withdrawing ahead of the those fighters’ advance.

Still the odds are overwhelming to ISIS’s disadvantage. They cannot easily withdraw from northwestern Syria to al-Raqqa, their primary base in Syria, since the Kurds control large parts of the Euphrates River following their capture of the Tishrin Dam from ISIS last December. So, they are essentially trapped in that region facing onslaughts of irregulars backed by a well-armed military, with no reinforcements or resupplies. This doesn’t mean they are not making headway in making the task Turkey has set out to achieve as difficult and as costly as possible.

Syrians returned to the Syrian town of Jarabulus following its cleansing of ISIS militants as part of Operation Euphrates Shield.

Turkey has shown that its strategy has many weaknesses. Offiziere.chpreviously noted that Turkey spearheaded its initial push into Syria with its older M60 Patton tanks, some of which quickly fell victim to rocket fire (at the time of writing and depending on the source 6-9 tanks), resulting in the few Turkish combat casualties in this campaign to date (11 soldiers). This, coupled with the aforementioned fact that Turkey is merely providing fire support to, presumably, relatively basically trained irregulars, does not inspire much confidence in a campaign which requires forces with sufficient counter-insurgency tactics to be able to hold the same territory they are able to overrun. Which is important since ISIS are known to blend in with civilian populations when they cannot repel their enemies on the battlefield, simply in order to attack them using other means later.

Turkey’s Syria incursion is likely set to evolve into a long-term military presence. Turkish officials want to establish their so-called “safe zone” across almost 90 km of the Syrian border and 60 km deep into Syria. It is already championing the present situation in Jarablus some 50 days after ISIS withdrew, which is returning to a state of normalcy, arguing that all the areas of northwestern Syria in their so-called safe zone will be like that in the long-term.

While Jarablus was relatively easy to reclaim other towns where the Turkish-backed militiamen have been fighting have been much tougher, sophisticated explosive traps and well dug-in ISIS militiamen are still proving to be an extremely formidable force to be reckoned with.

Jarablus was followed up by a much more recent victory, the seizure of the small town of Dabiq, 10 km south of the Turkish border on October 16. The tiny town – with a pre-war population of less than 3,500 – was of extreme symbolic importance to ISIS, which named its propaganda magazine after it, in reference to a Hadith that proclaims it to be the place where the Islamic armies defeat the Crusaders. Its capture was therefore of great symbolic significance to these Turkish-backed efforts, but by no means a strategic or even major tactical victory.

Therefore, its capture was, like Jarablus before it, far from definitive proof of the effectiveness or progress of the Turkish campaign and possibly an indication that ISIS is making tactical withdrawals to shore up other more valuable positions, such as the city of al-Bab, which had a pre-war population of at least 60,000 and is situated approximately 30 km from the Turkish border.

Al-Bab could prove at least as challenging for these irregulars to capture as Manbij was for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led group which, with continuous US air and intelligence support, fought for just under three months to seize that strategically important city from ISIS. The SDF consists of battle-hardened fighters who have had experience and prior success in fighting ISIS, whereas these FSA militiamen are relatively inexperienced. Before operation “Euphrates Shield”, Turkish-backed FSA rebels in northwestern Syria managed to seize the border-town of al-Rai from ISIS, only to lose it a few days later in a successful ISIS counterattack.

Turkey looks set to maintain, mostly by proxy, a presence in these areas it captured from ISIS for what could well amount to a few years. Given the shortcomings they have experienced from the very start of this campaign it remains in question if they are prepared to undertake such a challenging endeavour, never mind execute it with the decisiveness it requires.

Now, five years later, as Obama nears the end of his term, has this strategic realignment been a success? During this period, was there actually a shift in military focus from Europe to the Asian region? What consequences has this had on the power politics in the region? Could the United States do a better job of keeping China under check and help resolve regional conflicts?

US President Barack Obama addresses the Australian Parliament Parliament House in Canberra on November 17, 2011. President Obama is in Australia to mark the 60th anniversary of their security alliance and to bolster Washington’s presence in the strategically important region (Photo: Rick Rycroft / AFP).

Even when U.S. President Barack Obama announced the “Pivot to East Asia” with a bang in November 2011 in Canberra, the American commitment in Asia was not new: The United States had long been both an Atlantic and Pacific nation. The U.S. had been intensifying its military and diplomatic engagement in the Asian region since 2004, under then-President George W. Bush. Corresponding developments in military technology could ensure the long-term supremacy of the United States in the Asian region even with China’s increasing military competitiveness. The Pentagon, for example, had noticed that China’s development and acquisition of precision weapons had made U.S. aircraft carriers increasingly more vulnerable (Nina Silove, “The Pivot before the Pivot: U.S. Strategy to Preserve the Power Balance in Asia“, International Security 40, No. 4, 10.05.2016, p. 53f).

Additionally, the means of the U.S. Air Force and the U.S.Navy were augmented in Guam, Hawaii and Alaska as well as a loose network of partner states in the region established in the long-term. Improving diplomatic relations with China became a stated goal. Since Russia was no longer considered a military threat, there were plans from the beginning to shift military expenditures from Europe to Asia. However, to avoid upsetting its European partners or provoking China, the Bush administration has never shouted it from the rooftops (Silove, “The Pivot before the Pivot”).

With the bold announcement of the “Pivot to East Asia”, Obama did no service at all regarding the relations to the European partners or to China, and already 2012, the term “pivot” was replaced by “rebalance” (Lanxin Xiang, “China and the ‘Pivot’” Survival 54, No. 5, October 2012, p. 113).

The Obama administration further reinforced the military and diplomatic measures already initiated by the Bush administration. Also, the expansion of the network of partner states was intensified with the negotiation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a comprehensive free trade agreement signed in February 2016 by 12 states. If ratified, it could take effect in about two years’ time. With the enforcement of international law the U.S. will ensure long-term economic and maritime freedom in the Asian region.

With the “Pivot to East Asia”, Obama primarily wanted to seize the opportunity to boost the U.S. economy in the long term and create jobs, but other factors have also played an important role (Hillary Clinton, “America’s Pacific Century“, Foreign Policy, 11.10.2011). As far as Obama was concerned, U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was coming to an end after ten years in Afghanistan and seven years of a highly unpopular war in Iraq. He insisted that the responsibility for these two nations’ security would be transferred back to the respective national armed forces as soon as possible. Military resources would now be freed up and could be allocated elsewhere. At the same time, as part of overall budget cuts, Obama sought a significant reduction in the defence spending which had reached a record $750 billion in 2010 (Diem Nguyen Salmon, “A Proposal for the FY 2016 Defense Budget“, The Heritage Foundation, 30.01.2015). Meanwhile, in the lead-up to the 2012 NATO summit in Chicago, U.S. criticism of its European NATO partners had become increasingly spiteful as the latter had repeatedly slashed their military spending in the aftermath of the 2007 global economic crisis, making the US even more responsible for the bulk of NATO’s budget. Even before Obama’s speech in Canberra, it was obvious that Europe, which had remained relatively economically prosperous, secure, and politically stable despite the global economic crisis, was not willing to assume responsibility for its strategic environment. For instance, in June 2011, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates was highly critical that the European states involved in the international military intervention in Libya had already exhausted their entire inventory of bombs in just eleven weeks. The entire mission would have been doomed, Gates argued, if the U.S. had not provided support to its European partners (Thom Shanker, “Defense Secretary Warns NATO of ‘Dim’ Future“, The New York Times, 10.06.2011).

Finally, it was the Russian annexation of Crimea in spring 2014 and the subsequent war in Eastern Ukraine that eventually applied the brakes to the withdrawal of the U.S. presence from Europe. In its immediate aftermath, Obama announced his $1 billion “European Reassurance Initiative” in 2015 which would increase the number of U.S. troops in Eastern Europe with the rotation of an ABCT. This initiative received another $789 million in funding for 2016 and will enjoy an expanded budget of $3.4 billion in 2017. Almost 2/3 of this budget flows into the maintenance and expansion of equipment being held on the ready (tanks, artillery, ammunition, etc.) in Western Europe. This is apparently meant to be a long-term commitment of the U.S. in Europe. Despite the efforts to cut costs, a strategic realignment in Europe is therefore only taking place on a limited basis.

Under Obama, the economic and military measures regarding the Asian region are evident. The network of partner states has especially been strengthened. At the same time, the deployment of troops respectively their very specific reduction aimed not only to expand military cooperation with the U.S., but also to build partnerships between Asian countries. For example, troops have been reduced in South Korea and Japan to motivate these countries to play a more active role — certain parallels to European NATO member states are evident. Currently, initial results are being seen in Japan, where the new “Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation” were signed in 2015. In addition to the deployment of an X-band radar at Shariki in 2006, another such radar was stationed in Kyogamisaki in 2014. In the case of South Korea, the measures so far have shown to be less successful.

An aerial view from above U.S. Naval Base Guam (NBG) shows Apra Harbor with several navy vessels in port. As many as 22 total ships at one given time, marking the largest in-port presence at NBG in 30 years. The new ships in port, mostly destroyers from Destroyer Squadron 15 based out of Japan and three destroyers and a destroyer command ship from the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force, will participate in “Multi-Sail 2016”, a five-day at-sea bilateral exercise off the Guam’s coast before returning back into Apra Harbor for liberty in Guam (Photo: Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Deven Ellis).

In order to expand military training with its Pacific partner countries, a Marine air-ground task force has been stationed in Australia starting in 2012 and up to four new littoral combat ships have been sent to Singapore. After the Vietnam War, the U.S. armed forces had reduced their numbers in Asia from around 451,000 to an average of 69,000 between 2002 and 2014. This number has since climbed up to 77,000 troops in 2015 (Tim Kane, “The Decline of American Engagement: Patterns in US Troop Deployments“, Economics Working Paper, Hoover Institution, 11.01.2016, p. 5). Nevertheless, despite Obama’s assertions to the contrary, the cost-cutting has not abated in the Asian region. For example, the number of ships and aircraft required for a military operation remains inadequate and will remain so for budgetary reasons until after 2020 (Dakota L. Wood, 2016 Index of U.S. Military Strength, The Heritage Foundation, 2016, 86).

From China’s perspective, these measures are being interpreted as an aggressive strategy with the aim of curbing China’s legitimate claim to regional power. China especially takes a negative view of the TPP, since they were not included in it. It also does not help that the U.S. itself does not recognize this as a containment strategy (Xiang, “China and the ‘pivot'”). China’s response to what it sees as strategic challenges in its neighbourhood is both internal (military armament) and external (forging alliances). Although Chinese defence has remained about 2% of its GDP since the early 1990s, the economic growth of the country has meant much larger budgets for its military, growing from $43.23 billion in 2000 to $214.5 billion in 2015 (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “The SIPRI Military Expenditure Database“, 2015). This is hardly surprising and confirms the American assessment of the emergence of an increasingly competitive China.

However, the United States has underestimated the possibility of an external balance in power. The last few years have shown that China’s power can not been constrained and that its international influence is increasing. This includes, for instance, the initiative to build a “modern Silk Road” as announced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013 which would expand China’s foreign trade infrastructure and secure its gateway to Africa and Europe. China’s future military ambitions could also be fulfilled, for example with its plans to build a logistical support point for the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) in Djibouti. The justification for the construction of this base is PLAN’s involvement in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Aden since 2008. China also participated in a UN peacekeeping mission for the first time in 2013 (in Mali). Today China is involved in 10 UN peacekeeping missions with around 2,500 soldiers, the largest contingent being just over 1,000 soldiers in South Sudan, where China is also pursuing its economic interests in protecting oil production. In the Central Asian region and also internationally, China has found a partner with which it has much common and with which it shares some geopolitical and international interests: Russia. Already, both major powers are increasingly influential in Central Asia due to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (Silove, “The Pivot before the Pivot”, p. 85).

The territorial conflict in the South China Sea is another example that shows how China is no longer cowering in fear before U.S. displays of power and is consistently asserting its interests against Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei, and the Philippines, all countries with a positive relationship with the U.S. and all signatories of the TPP. This has resulted in active U.S. involvement in this conflict with so-called “Freedom of Navigation” operations where U.S. warships demonstratively sail through international waters territory claimed by China, and U.S. reconnaissance aircraft fly over disputed islands (Joseph Bosco, “After the South China Sea Ruling, Time for More FONOPs“, The Diplomat, 29.07.2016).

Satellite images show where local officials say China is building its first overseas military outpost and a commercial port in Djibouti. Left: November 23, 2015 / Right: August 07, 2016

Neither the Philippines nor the United States can enforce the decision of the PCA against the will of China and the “Freedom of Navigation” operations are not impressing anyone, least of all the U.S. partner states. The weakness of this network has been reflected in the change of government in the Philippines, an important U.S. partner. The president elected in June 2016, Rodrigo Duterte, wants stronger relations with China and is distancing himself from the U.S.-friendly path of his predecessor. Since taking office, he has vehemently pursued drug dealers and addicts, which has resulted in the arrest of 18,000 drug addicts and a dramatic increase of fatalities during police operations. The U.S. criticism of the situation and the accusations of human rights violations have estranged Duterte from Obama. In late September, Duterte announced that the Philippines would be ceasing its maritime cooperation with the United States. In early October he even threatened to expel the U.S. Troops in the Philippines (Kevin Lui, “Philippines: Duterte Threatens to End Defense Pact with U.S.“, Time, 03.10.2016). Other U.S. partners in the region, for instance Vietnam, are also only partially reliable (Simon Tisdall, “Obama’s failed ‘Asian pivot’ leaves China ascendant“, The Guardian, 25.09.2016). This is the result of the Obama administration’s failure to achieve any progress with major regional conflicts such as the South China Sea or the nuclear threat from North Korea. In the light of an increasingly militarily and economically growing China, some countries in the region seem to have resigned themselves to having to deal with China in the long term.

Construction on Johnson South Reef. In regard to the territorial conflict in the South China Sea, there was a bloody skirmish between China and Vietnam about that reef in 1988 during which 64 Vietnamese sailors were being killed. Left: January 2014 / Right February 2016.

Conlusion
The U.S. has always been an Atlantic and Pacific nation. Already President George W. Bush intensified its military and diplomatic engagement in the Asian region, but he never shouted it from the rooftops. President Obama has pushed these efforts further, but the “Pivot to East Asia” announced in November 2011 in Canberra has actually been a disservice to these efforts. The European NATO member states, which had already been heavily criticized for their reductions in their military spending, feared a substantial shift of U.S. forces from Europe to the Asian region, as signalled by the withdrawal of two ABCT. The fact that this reduction in troops was due more to cuts in U.S. defence spending than to a strategic realignment has largely been ignored. Since the annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, the European region has once again become a point of interest for the U.S., as indicated by the European Reassurance Initiative, which will be substantially expanded next year. Although budget cuts will continue to be noticeable with the closure and concentration of bases, the “Pivot to East Asia” itdelf is only having a limited effect on the U.S. position in Europe.

Unlike Europe, the number of troops in the Asian region has increased by almost 10%, and the military base in Guam has especially expanded with more military equipment being moved to the region. But here too the spending cuts by the U.S. Armed Forces are noticeable. The military equipment and the number of vessels and aircraft necessary for a military operation remain inadequate. With military cooperation, military training and joint exercises, the U.S. is trying to establish a network of partner countries in the region. The mid-term success seems rather ambivalent. Depending on domestic and regional political interests, certain states seem ready to change sides or align with both sides at a whim. Additionally, the TPP, which was intended to forge economic ties among the partner states, has yet to be ratified. Faced with the unrestrained economic and military growth of China and the U.S. impotence in resolving regional conflicts, some countries will have to accept China’s long-term role as the dominant regional power.

Despite the “Pivot to East Asia”, it is obvious that China will not kowtow to the U.S. On the contrary, the Obama administration’s efforts have led to a hardening of attitudes, because the entire strategy appears to China as an aggressive attempt to restrict its power. Courting potential partners in the region and creating the framework for the TPP while leaving China out has come to be seen by the Chinese negatively. There is therefore no rational reason for China to renounce its claim to power in the region, which is obvious from its point of view, as can clearly be seen in the territorial conflict in the South China Sea. On the contrary, China has steadily expanded its international activities since 2008, with its commitment to Africa, the fight against piracy, the construction of the “modern Silk Road”, global investment, participation in UN peacekeeping missions, and plans to establish a navy logistics base in Djibouti. Perhaps the U.S. would be better advised to accept the power demands of China and embrace a more diplomatically-constructive approach. A military conflict between both great powers, whether intentional or not, would be disastrous for both countries, the Asian region and the world. Moreover, a lasting serious conflict of interest with the U.S. and the similarities between China and Russia could lead to the two becoming companions in fate, which would cause further headaches in Washington.

Despite his bold announcement, Obama’s strategic reorientation has not managed to bring China under control or make any progress in important regional conflicts. At the moment, the measures taken by Obama are much more a “pivot to nowhere”.

More information

Duterte journeyed to Beijing this week to announce his “separation from the United States” in military and economic terms. “America has lost,” Duterte said. He claimed that a new alliance of the Philippines, China, and Russia would emerge — “there are three of us against the world.” His trade secretary said the Philippines and China were inking $13 billion in trade deals; that’s a pretty hefty signing bonus for switching sides. Duterte said he will soon end military cooperation with the United States, despite the opposition of his armed forces. […] If the Philippines becomes a Chinese satrapy, by contrast, Washington will find itself hard-pressed to hold the “first island chain” in the Western Pacific that encompasses “the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyus, Taiwan, and the Philippine archipelago.” Defending that line of island barriers has been a linchpin of U.S. strategy since the Cold War. It now could be undone because of the whims of one unhinged leader. — Max Boot, “Duterte’s Flip-Flop Into Bed With China Is a Disaster for the United States“, Foreign Policy, 20.10.2016.

The disaster in Afghanistan, for which the U.S. government bears much of the responsibility, has received far less attention. Last year, the Taliban seized Kunduz, a northern provincial capital far from traditional militant strongholds. The country’s ill-equipped soldiers required U.S. air and fire support — in addition to the participation of U.S. special operations forces — to recapture the city. Journalists focused on the accidental bombing of the MSF-hospital during the lengthy firefight instead of the startling facts on the ground: the Taliban, once on the run from Western soldiers in the Afghan countryside, now had the firepower, manpower, and willpower to seize the country’s fifth-largest city. Since then, the Taliban has managed to besiege Kunduz again in addition to making further inroads into Helmand, Afghanistan’s largest province and the centerpiece of its illegal drug trade.

The Taliban controls a fifth of Afghan territory and influences half of it, giving the insurgents little reason to negotiate or retreat. Afghanistan now resembles Iraq in 2014: Militants are using a Western withdrawal to besiege or seize cities while the U.S. government and public express reluctance to intervene in a country where they have spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives. This attitude, however understandable, led to the power vacuum that empowered IS. A similar blitzkrieg by the Taliban, which hosted al-Qaeda during the planning of 9/11 and still maintains an alliance with it, presents a threat equal to (if not greater than) IS. The Taliban has fought U.S. soldiers for fifteen years without facing IS’s near extinction of the late 2000s, rendering it a more patient, resilient foe.

If the U.S. government wants to prevent an Afghan sequel to the IS surge in Iraq, it must invest military and political resources in Afghanistan now, when adequate intervention can preserve the Afghan state and protect its national security. The Taliban will only concede or negotiate if the U.S. government gives it a reason to fear defeat. Till then, the insurgents will edge closer to victory.

Amid deteriorating relations between the US and Russia over the Syria crisis officials in Moscow are voicing that country’s intention to establish a permanent naval base on Syria’s Mediterranean coastline. Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov told the Federation Council on October 10 that Moscow “will have a permanent naval base at Tartus“.

Igor Morozov, a member of the Federation Council, followed up this announcement by declaring, “[b]y doing this Russia is not only increasing its military potential in Syria but in the entire Middle East and in the Mediterranean region as a whole.”

Despite other claims, Russia didn’t expand their naval facility in Tartus, yet. It is expected that the Russian aircraft-carrying cruiser Admiral Kuznetsov will anchor off Syria’s coast in November and will stay there until January 2017.

“If our new combat surface ships and submarines outfitted with Kalibr cruise missiles are based in Tartus, this will allow Moscow to keep the situation in the Middle East and Mediterranean under control,” Igor Korotchenko, the editor of the National Defense magazine, told Sputnik.

The only major thing to change since that time is the striking fact that Russia and Turkey are making great headway in restoring relations since they began their rapprochement over the summer. Meanwhile, Washington’s accidental bombing and killing of at least sixty-two Syrian soldiers in Deir Ezzor last month along with Moscow’s full backing of, and support to, the Syrian regimes ferocious bombardment of Aleppo, has seen relations deteriorate to dangerous Cold War lows.

Russia has just added advanced S-300VM missiles to its arsenal in Syria amid the fallout with Washington, a clear message to Washington that Moscow could readily make all of Syria’s airspace a no-fly zone if the US tries to interfere with the present campaign it is waging, alongside the Syrian regime, in Aleppo.

Also, data accumulated by Reuters show that Russia’s “Syrian Express”, hence the international shipping route from the Black Sea through the Bosphorus to the Mediterranean Sea, is more busy than ever. “Some of the ships that have been sent to Syria were so heavily laden the load line was barely visible above the water”, Reuters observed.

With such a logistical route stretching directly from the Russian mainland to a large permanent Syrian naval base, Russia could maintain a very formidable force in that wider region in the foreseeable future. Having warships, as Korotchenko describes, with lethal weaponry permanently based in the Mediterranean Sea (rather than further north in the Black Sea) would seriously alter the balance of power there.

For the meantime Syria remains a largely unstable country. Granted, while Russia does have a largely stable foothold in the Latakia province – which it helped secure through its initial intervention, when the Syrian regime was largely on the defensive – the future of Syria remains in the balance. Russia counts on having a weak regime, that it will have to continuously shore up, as its host in a country which has been completely wrecked from war.

However, even under the two Assad’s relations with Moscow, while mostly cordial, have had their ups and downs over the decades. One notably tense, but largely forgotten, incident occurred back in 1989 in Tartus. The scholar David W. Lesch, author of a political history of the presidency of Bashar al-Assad, recalls that incident well since he was present as a graduate student at the time. It saw two Syrian helicopter gunships attack one of the Russian cruisers docked at that port, killing two Soviet sailors. Not knowing why on earth Damascus did such a thing to their superpower ally Lesch wagered a guess that the incident was “a not-so-subtle message from [then Syrian President] Hafez al-Assad to [General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] Mikhail Gorbhachev that Damascus did not like the direction of Syrian-Soviet relations at the time.”

That incident aptly demonstrates that the relationship between the major Russian power and the Syrian regime was not always built on solid foundations and is susceptible to sudden ruptures. Something the Kremlin should bear in mind before it commits to devoting the large amount of capital and resources such an undertaking will inevitably require.